Just My Thoughts

Christina M. Meide

Dreams have always been a fascination of mine. With this fascination comes the frustration that, though I know I dream each night, I don't often remember my dreams. I may remember for the briefest moment after the alarm goes off, but then it's gone instantaneously as though the alarm was some kind of magical eraser.

This has not stopped me from enjoying other people's dreams, however. One of my favorite things to do is listen to The Night Watchman and my children tell me about the dreams they've had. This is usually the first thing that The Night Watchman and I do in the morning as we are getting ready for work. I don't usually have much to contribute, but once in awhile, a vague portion of a dream will surface.

It's actually pretty incredible how dreams work so differently with each person. The consensus on dreams, it seems, is that they are random in content and really don't do anything for us except keep us sane. Some people pay absolutely no attention to their dreams at all. Others have broken them down into specific areas. For example, release dreams are dreams that make absolutely no sense from beginning to end. These dreams allow us to let off steam in a harmless way while giving us an entertaining way to do so.

On the market are any number of books offering dream analysis and most of these have "dream dictionaries" to look into. These books have always given me great pause. I find it impossible to believe that the same meaning for a specific item in a dream means the same thing for everyone. In fact, I've even wondered where these dream interpretations come from in these books since all of us are completely different and lead totally different kinds of lives.

If two people dream about a horse, how can the interpretation of that symbol mean the same thing for both people when their dreams were completely different in content and action? This has never made any sense to me, so I steer away from these kinds of books. If dreams have meaning, which I very much believe they do, this meaning will be found by looking into the content of the dream and the life of the individual having the dream, not is some book that offers the same explanation for every person.

I found this out firsthand by listening to my own family. There are six of us and all of us dream in different ways.

My oldest daughter - now 23, married and a mother of two - has always had pretty vivid and memorable dreams. These dreams were usually quite logical in sequence, involved people she knew and recognized and were very entertaining.

She did have one type of dream, however, that had us stumped for awhile. These dreams always involved her losing teeth at some point in the dream. Sometimes she would lose one or two teeth and, other times, she would lose large numbers of teeth.

I always got a chuckle out of these dreams as my daughter has a "perfect set" of teeth in that mouth of hers. Not a single cavity and not a crooked tooth in sight. She has always taken magnificent care of her teeth, even as a small child, yet some of her dreams reflect losing those teeth. A fear? Maybe. A meaning far above actually losing her teeth? Absolutely.

It seems that her subconscious mind is using the loss of her teeth to get her to sit up and pay attention. What better way to do that than to have her dream of losing teeth - something she has worked so hard to keep healthy in her 23 years.

With this in mind, when she was 16, we began paying attention to the content of her dreams and the things that were going on in her life at the time. What we ended up figuring out is that the loss of teeth in her dreams gave her warning to something coming up in her life that might not be the most pleasant event. A warning of sorts. The more teeth she lost, the bigger the event. It was quite astounding in fact. The dreams, themselves, did not often give her clues to what the unpleasant event might be, though occasionally the people in the dreams were involved in the event, but she always knew to look for something coming up when she had a dream like this. In this way, she was able to brace herself somewhat and able to work through the unpleasantness much more effectively.

My son, now 19 years old, did not share dreams with me. I knew, of course, that he dreamt a good number of times every night as we all do, but he was not one to share. I imagined, though, that his dreams were probably quite crazy in content, as that is the way his mind always worked. When he was just a little guy, out of the blue, he would ask me the strangest questions.

"Mommy, what would happen if a giant dinosaur came and stepped on our house?" or "Mommy, what would happen if a giant bug came down and landed in our front yard?"

I always got a kick out of these questions and wondered if they were coming from dreams that he'd had the night before, but this remains a mystery. Even to this day, he doesn't seem to feel his dreams are of any kind of importance to him. At least not yet.

I now have to retract that last sentence. I had just finished writing this article when the phone rang. It was my son. He only calls about once every three months as his job keeps him very busy, so it was a great surprise for me!

During the course of our conversation, he suddenly brought up the fact that he'd had a strange dream. I nearly fell over! Not just because I'd just finished writing this article, but because he had never said these words to me before. Coincidence? I don't believe in coincidence.

His dream involved his best friend's brother who was killed in an atrocious manner about a year ago. My son explained the dream as being so vivid that he really felt like he was there and that his best friend's brother came to sit around and chat. This was the second dream of this kind he'd had.

I was overjoyed for him and explained that he had been visited by his friend's brother. Much of this my son should have known as he lived with me long enough to hear about any number of amazing things, but kids don't always pay attention to what they are not interested in. However, suddenly he was interested, so we had a fabulous conversation about dreams. He also informed me that the girl he was dating was really into dream interpretation, which leads me to believe that something is coming forth to let him know it's time to pay attention.

My third child, a daughter just turned 16, has absolutely astounding dreams in the sense that they are in full vivid color, full of incredible detail, and seem to last forever. Either her memory is far beyond the average person, or she has somehow tapped into the secret of remembering every single detail of a dream while the rest of us flounder.

Her dreams are not always logical in sequence, but kind of flow in and out of logic. If she sees a house in her dream, you can guarantee that she can describe this house down to the finish work within and without, then go on and tell you every move she or anyone else in her dream made. She even remembers "why" she has gone to a specific place and "why" certain people were with her.

In honesty, when she starts in on a dream, I really have to make sure that I am not doing something that requires no interruption. It has to be a time, such as sitting at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee, that I am able to concentrate on all that she has to share. Since the detail is so extended, if you miss a portion of it, you've literally lost the dream and have to have her start over.

My youngest daughter, aged 11, does not share her dreams often, but when she does, they always seem to be very logical and serious. They may not be very long, but they always seem to have a specific message within them meant for her. I do not recall hearing her tell of dreams that have made no sense at all - you know, just the fun, crazy dreams that make us all shake our heads and wonder, "Where in the world did that come from?" I'm certain she must dream like this at times, but it seems only the serious dreams are what she remembers.

My oldest daughter, in high school, was a good student and her main concentration was on singing. She was very social, even as a young child, but also much more serious than most children. A no nonsense attitude and high moral beliefs made her an excellent role model for her younger siblings, though maybe not in the way of making good friends. She was very selective in her friend choices, though could pleasantly get along with everyone. Only the most loyal of people were given "choice" status with her and these people are still good friends though they all live quite a distance apart.